Beck Water

Thing is, keep in mind we went into last season with Cook, Damien Harris, and Latavius Murray. Ty Johnson was on the practice squad and became an injury replacement for Harris before Game 7. Latavius Murray getting stem cell injections to try to eke another season out of his 34 yr old body; Harris retired; and Ty Johnson was less effective than either Murray or Harris (13 ypg vs 20 or 15). And it's not like Johnson was a rookie - that was his 5th year in the league. So if we want to run the ball effectively, and we don't want our #2 RB to be named Josh Allen, we can't "run our RB room" back with Cook and Johnson. We need more running backs to stay in the same place. I hear you on the "more insurance", but I think Beane may be looking at it as - how much insurance does a WR you draft at the end of the 4th round truly provide? And then, is it significant additional insurance above and beyond what our 5th round pick Shorter, 2 UDFA Shavers and Thompson, the two vet 2nd rounders Hamler and Isabella, and now 3 year vet Quintez Cephus, provide? I think it's possible that Beane had a WR he liked higher up in the 4th and was trying to move up into the first 10 picks to grab one of the cluster of WR who went in the first half of the 4th, but it takes two and sounds like no one was buying what he was selling. I think I caught something about trying to move up but no one was interested (of course, there were a cluster of other RBs drafted in the 4th and some other positions, so who knows what he wanted).

Oh, yeah, that grounding call was kind of unique. Though I'm sure it's happened before - think it might have happened to Fitzy a couple times on the Bills. IIRC, people who know something said on at least one of those routes, Davis made the right call given the defense and Allen made the wrong call (happened a couple times with Shakir as well IIRC). Part of that is "the QB has fractional seconds with 300 lb behemoths bearing down on him" and part of that may be just not getting on the same page - maybe it's technically the right call but not aligned with Allen's preferred throw or Allen's preferred throw under duress. I think we didn't see that kind of thing so much from guys like Tom Brady because when the behemoths revved it up, he said "***** it!" and took the checkdown instead of Going for the Gusto, and maybe Allen should be doing a *wee* bit more of that, too.

Oh, Wow, Shaw. I don't quite know what to say here. I do think there's an element of Beane being practical - as Beane himself said, if Coleman had run a faster 40 time, he likely wouldn't have been there when we picked. And I think he went into the draft thinking "I better come out with a S and a DT", so 4th round was the first time he thought adding an RB added value. I think Shakir and Kincaid are good athletes, but not receivers who can do everything. Nor do I think Coleman is a receiver who can do everything. I think they all 3 have things they are better suited for, physically and in terms of skills. Seeing the addition of Coleman and Samuel as evidence Beane "clearly was not looking for the killer big downfield threat at receiver" seems odd to me. Beane explicitly said Coleman's role would be to play as the "X" receiver. That's traditionally the boundary guy who is a threat downfield. Now maybe Beane is wrong, and Coleman can't get off press (Beane said he was good at press) and can't separate "enough" downfield, or maybe Beane is "speaking with forked tongue", I don't know, but that's what he said, and (returning to the "being practical") who was on the board who looked more like a killer big downfield threat within reach of pick 28? I literally blinked and jolted back when I read "drafting Ray Davis [at the bottom of the 4th round] "sends a strong signal that the Buills intend to be a serious running team". I mean, it's certainly possible that Davis will take touches from Johnson. Johnson had 37 touches in 91 offensive snaps (30 rush, 7 receptions), though, so that's kind of a low bar? Latavius Murray had 102 touches (22 targets, 79 carries) in 351 snaps, so I think that's the production we're trying to replace, and the question is between Johnson and Davis, is that enough, or had we better add a FA who can pass protect? The run game we showed at the end of the season also reflected an outsize contribution from Josh Allen - jumping from 4-ish to 9 rushes per game. If we want to be a serious running team and not run our QB into the ground, I think it's reasonable to ask if a stable of Cook, Ty Johnson, and Ray Davis at RB is "enough"? I mean, you may be right that the Bills intend to be a serious running team - moving on from Morse for McGovern who at least in theory, should be a better power game center at the expense of pass pro as well as Brady's actual shift from 42% to 52% rush sort of imply that. But if they want to be a serious running team, is taking a 4th round RB really enough of an add? Time will tell I guess.

LOL he said he scoops out all the seafood but leaves the "sauce". A decision approved by Mack "did you ever see a lion eat soup? I want food I can eat with my hands!" Hollins.

Riffing on this, there may be some "Devil in the Details" in the approach used. I noticed that Beane said Allen calls or texts him and says "I've been throwing with this guy, what do you think about him?" or "I've been watching this guy's highlights, what do you think?" I think it is possible that a certain HOF QB who recently switched teams and who was pretty loud about not having any input into team decisions, just MAY have approached his GM with more of a "this guy is really great and you ought to go get him for me" or "keep this guy on the team", which might elicit a rather different reaction from the GM and FO than "hey, what do you think about...."

I think you have a valid ask "if the Worthy and Coleman picks were flipped, would the same people have the same concerns?" My guess is not so much, if only because Worthy generated so much "buzz" with his fastest 40 time while Coleman's 40 was "slug like". But I'd project there might still be a reasonable number of fans who would feel concern that Coleman was an unheralded underdeveloped Beast while Worthy was a fragile twig who was going to be snapped in two by the Chiefs linebackers, because I think you're correct that people believe the Chiefs know how to do things better than the Bills - and their belief has a good basis, until proven otherwise. With regard to this board, we have the Weasel Words you "doubt very many" fans feel they know better than Brandon Beane. We've just seen (weasel word alert) a significant number of posters who are loud and proud complaining about who the Bills did or did not pick in the just-completed draft. In absolute numbers, as a fraction of the overall board membership, it may not be very many but as a fraction of people who actively post (including some who I normally consider astute and knowledgeable posters), we see various forms of that. As for the playoffs, I'll worry about getting there first. Then I'll worry about whether or not Worthy pans out as a rookie pick and whether or not the Bills and Chiefs face off.

Davis has 20 career drops and 18 career interceptions against him. Whilst some of those are in no way his fault (Josh forcing the ball or just throwing in his general direction), a goodly number are balls he got his hands on but didn't complete the catch, or that ricocheted off his hands.

I don't know of a good breakdown overall in depth breakdown, just little pieces. After the Diggs trade, in one of the OBD segments Greg Cosell minced no words about Diggs. Spoiler: he said Diggs was "no longer a #1 receiver physically at this time". He referred to Shakir as "their new #1". He puts some film clips behind his assessment https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MfWFFj1lsW8 I also put some breakdowns of Brady games into the "comes down to Brady" thread On the other hand, Devin McCourty said that "it looks like they're trying to prove they can win without him" (Diggs)" prior to the 2nd Miami game. So it may be a "chicken-egg" thing; perhaps Diggs was ineffective as the Bills had been using him, so they were trying to put him into different roles where he could still be effective, and that looked like "trying to win without him" to McCourty. Of course, we don't know why; was he suffering nagging injuries, or has he physically declined? For either reason, it appears to have been intentional. You can find a beautiful breakdown of each receiver first and 2nd half of season - in fact it's upthread here

You initially said 21 (2 rb, 1 TE) then corrected that you meant 12 (1 RB, 2 TE). But a red zone package with 2 backs may actually be a thing. Recall we have Reggie Gilliam, who is a decent receiver (77.8% catch rate) and a pretty effective lead blocker on runs as well. I think it's going to depend upon how Kincaid's blocking chops develop this season - he may be an effective red zone target, but last year he wasn't effective blocking in the compressed space of the RZ, more so blocking downfield where it's more a question of "just get in the way for a moment", he did that pretty well. So as of last year, if Kincaid was on the field in the RZ in a 12 set, that made it effectively more of a 11 set with 3 receivers if that makes sense? But if his blocking takes a step, then we could easily see more 12.

I've been digging around for breakdowns and analysis of Joe Brady's offense and this seemed like a good place to share. Breakdown of his gameplan vs Jets last fall https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hlsVfKrS9TQ Kurt Warner QB Confidential analyze Brady game plan Bills vs Jets https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUfXEIL_N6c Cover1 on Bills vs KC https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fOIetvLoiM Assessment of his passing game concepts as LSU Passing Game Coordinator Cover1 https://www.cover1.net/lsu-bunch-formation-passing-concepts-film-analysis/ More concepts from LSU offense https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uq0QNqjh5JE A look at why Joe Brady's offense failed in Carolina https://www.si.com/nfl/panthers/gm-report/a-look-at-why-the-joe-brady-experiment-failed Welcome any more finds anyone has with insight into how Joe Brady might shape the Bills 2024 offense Where I am so far: 1) don't expect LSU's offense. He had Ja'Mar Chase and Justin Jefferson. We don't have Ja'Mar Chase and Justin Jefferson. 2) overall thoughts seem to be Brady was too vanilla in Carolina - not enough "eye candy" or pre-snap motion. But whether one can pull that off and make it effective, ultimately depends upon the player personnel to Do Their Job, too. 3) at the end of last season, it was very clear that Brady's offense ran more. Under Dorsey, rush snaps were 42%. Under Brady, 52%. But, a big part of that were Josh Allen's rush snaps increasing from ~4 per game to ~ 9 per game. In 2022, Josh was 8 A/G; prior to that low of 6.5 high of 7.4. a) does this represent a change in philosophy to a run-first team, or b) Brady making the best use of the pieces and plays he had available mid-season? or c) trying to give Allen's shoulder sprain some rest so it could heal up? 4) Greg Cosell and others have commented about a switch to "big receivers". with Dalton Kincaid and now Keon Coleman. But we still have plenty of smaller receivers on the team - -Curtis Samuel 5'11 195 4.3 40-time -Khalil Shakir 6'0 196 4.43 40 time and 29" arms; -KJ Hamler 5'9" 178 reported 4.27 40-time (oft-injured dark horse; 2020 2nd round pick #46) -Andy Isabella 5'9" 5'8 3/4 29 3/4" arms 4.31 40-time (never-productive darker horse, 2019 2nd round pick #62) Are we switching to big receivers, or just trying to fill a gap in what we've previously had, which is a collection of smurfs and average guys? I think it would be a mistake for the Bills to try to run more. Bills finished the 2023 season #5 in attempts and #7 in rush yards. That would be an amalgam of a very pass-centric early season and a run-centric 2nd season. We also finished #8 in passing yards, which is similar to 2022 (8) and 2021 (9) vs 2020 when we were 3rd. In rush yards we were 20th in 2020, 6th in 2021, 9th 9n 2022, 7th in 2023. But a lot of those rush yards were on the back of Josh Allen, and a good fraction of Allen's runs are scrambles. I would like to see the Bills develop a more effective run game that does not involve Allen, for the sake of his longievity. Thoughts? Knowledge of what Brady did as pass game coordinator at LSU and tried to do in Carolina? More assessment of what he did last season?

The thing is fans hear a thing and run with it. Like Keon Coleman talking about eating at Waffle House and McDonalds. He talked in the RGIII interview someone posted, about now people are saying all he eats is fast food; he said he knows how to cook and his mom and brother live with him, someone cooks most of the time and he eats fast food maybe once a week, like a "cheat day". Even some guys like Zo Alexander who were outspoken about following particular diets in an effort to take care of their bodies also talked about how after a game, he would "just eat whatever" - whatever appealed to him and made him feel good, so he had a cheat day.

Honest answer: weren't you here for the multiple threads whinging that Mahomes was having photos snapped with Hollywood Brown and some other receivers in the weight room, and talking about him throwing with the Chiefs WR and some draft picks? Voices were loud and numerous that Josh doesn't put in any football work all off season. I could have missed it, but I don't believe I saw you in those threads telling the crowds it didn't matter. But now that Beane is saying Josh has thrown with some draft prospects and calls him up to talk about them, and that Josh plans to get together to throw outside of OTAs, now here you are telling us it doesn't matter

It's not a bad thing, but when a guy is coming off an $8 AAV contract and a good year where he was the #2 receiver, if he can't get a good contract he'll at least want to go somewhere where he thinks he can get a good target share. From the Bills side, I'd like to see us go after a talented younger guy OR a proven vet - not a 29 year old Never-Was Who is begging for Zay Jones?

Oh, great, we now have the next useless metric to go along with the QB 300 yd passing game (remember when Allen sucked after we went to the playoffs in 2019 because he hadn't had one)? Stefon Diggs didn't have a 1000 yd season until his 4th season in Minny. He was still a good, proven player after his rookie year, even though he only had 720 yds or 849 yds. Cole Beasley in his 11 year NFL career had 0 1000 yd receiving seasons Now I might understand what you might be getting at. We want to see Curtis Samuel surpass his previous 851 yd best season, and not have the 650-ish he had the last 2 years. We want to see Shakir surpass the 39 receptions and 611 yds he had last year. We need Kincaid to surpass his 73 reception, 673 yd rookie year. We need production from Coleman in his rookie year. And while we're at it, would be nice if Knox would return to his 50-ish receptions for 500-ish yards of '21 and '22 instead of the <200 yds we got from him last year. We need Cook to keep up his contributions of 400-ish yards or step up a bit. 'Cuz if we get 600 yds from Coleman and 2023-ish production from everyone else, we're gonna be looking at a ~3,100 yd passing year. On the other hand, if Coleman manages 600 yds and the rest somehow manage an extra 900 yds between the 5 of them (like 180 yds apiece) then we'll be good.

This is great, thank you for putting this together. Question: any particular reason you broke it down as 8 games and 9 games? Reason I ask is that 'last 9 games' includes 2 games with Dorsey still as OC. That might matter - I put this elsewhere, but when I looked at rush % and pass % in games where Brady was OC vs games where Dorsey was OC, the difference was even more significant than you note. The Bills had an overall 58%/42% pass/rush split under Dorsey. They shifted to a 48%/52% pass/rush split under Brady. A lot of that, unfortunately, was rush attempts for Josh Allen - I make it 9.2 attempts/ game including playoffs with a Dorsey/Brady split. I really don't think we want to rely on Josh Allen as the best rusher on the team. Anyway I think looking at it as Dorsey vs Brady makes some of the differences you noted more stark. And yeah, we don't know how much was what Brady would like to do, and how much is "OK, these are the chess pieces still on my board, these are their capabilities, what can I do to win now?"

So we drafted Ray Davis at pick 128 in the 4th. There were 3 WR drafted pretty promptly in the 4th - 102, 110, 113. Moving up 15-26 slots is A Lot, not just in terms of draft picks - but teams don't like to give up that much freedom of choice unless the trading team makes it very juicy for them. It may well be we tried to trade up, and didn't find a deal we were OK with. The next receiver drafted, at 135, was drafted 22 slots later, suggesting teams may have perceived a talent difference. Beane said in his presser that the team's evaluation of the WR we drafted and signed last year had a role in not drafting a WR in the late rounds. It may be that they like Shorter, Shavers, Thompson, and Hamler better as prospects than anyone within reach of our picks, IDK.

"If I get a call from Josh in the off season, it's usually him seeing some highlight, running into somebody, throwing with somebody, just something to ask me what I think about somebody, he called me at the Senior Bowl to ask what I think about a couple of guys there. He's been in the building the last couple of weeks since the off season program has started. We did give him some guys, we said "sit back there with the coaches, y'all watch them together and talk about how you'd use 'em, I'd like to hear what you see. He liked a lot of the guys, he really did, but Keon was one, I know he liked him a lot." Said Josh Facetimed him Friday at home and asked what he thought, and he (Beane) said "barring someone blowing me away, I'm going to take Keon" and he was pretty pumped." A lot to unpack there; 1) Confirms what I caught out of Josh's OTA presser, he did watch film cut ups on selected WR (and new information, with the coaches) 2) Kind of sounded to me as though Beane intended to take Keon at Pick 28 and just squeezed as much extra draft capitol as he could first 3) "throwing with somebody" But Josh doesn't throw or work out in the off season prior to OTAs because, because, I read it here on TBD!

Nah. It was about 10-15 guys (maybe 11 or 12 after eliminating some sock puppets) who complained for weeks. The majority of the board complained vehemently in 2-6 posts, got it out of their system in 3 days, then said "Oh well, He's a Bill now so we'll hope for the best!"

I see no reason it isn't plausible. I think historically, the #33 and #34 picks are very popular trade targets, being that the talent pool usually isn't very different between the top of the 2nd and the bottom of the 1st. And, the Bills had just been giving off smoke signals "we're in the market for more picks or to move up with what we have" so why wouldn't 5 teams test the waters?

I agree with the overall thrust of your post, but in his OTA presser Josh said something to the effect of he was "going down to watch film of every catch". Whether coaches or scouts were there, or how many receivers he watched, I don't know. It's probably something along the lines of 240 targets per dude, maybe 20 seconds per target - probably 90 minutes per dude, I could see Josh getting through 4-5 guys in a week easily while working out at OTAs and hanging out with the team. It just bothers me because I feel people partially quote (which in meaning, becomes a mis-quote) Josh a lot here and then fluff it up into a BFD, not saying that's what you do or are doing here, just explaining why I'm kind of picking a nit. *********************** Following this up with: in his appearance on (I think) Pat Macafee podcast - it's linked elsewhere - Beane explicitly said that they gave Josh a group of guys and told him to sit with the coaches and watch their tape together and discuss them and how they would use them.

LOL I've been trying to recall just what Josh said about Dorsey as OC when he was promoted, and it really was pretty much that positive. There was stuff about "my career changed when he walked into the building" and such like. Very positive. The thing is it didn't stay that way long, it became "I have to see the field the same way he does as OC" which in hindsight, sounds like struggling. Those are the 4 that were at or around our original pick, but I honestly don't think Worthy was on our board in the late 1st/early 2nd at all. I also think if the Bills had Legette on there it must have been significantly lower, because Carolina was NOT subtle about telegraphing their Legette Love.

I was thinking more move in with Shakir and work with Eric Moulds (gloveless), though that place Diggs used to train would also be good. I forget the name, but their motto was something like "won't get you stronger, won't get you faster, will get you open." Seriously, Shakir had a huge jump in his catch % from 50% to 87% last season, and in that "Embedded" piece he credits working off-season with Eric Moulds, bare-handed. He said that working bare handed forces you to focus on refining your catching technique, then adding gloves takes it to another level. I'm not saying that Coleman needs to improve his catch rate, but Diggs used to say that Josh's passes didn't hurt "if you catch them properly"

I mean, Josh may have said he wanted Coleman, but it was likely in some context - "we predict these 3 guys will go in the top 10 and we're not going to mortgage this draft and the next to move up there, even if we could which is not certain. We think these 6-7 guys will be within reach of our #28 pick, do you have a take?" I doubt Allen's ranking would move the Bills draft board, but if there were 2 guys they were close on it might have influenced.

Tomorrow at 4 pm is the deadline for FA signings to count in the 2025 comp pick formula, so nobody significant being signed before 4 pm tomorrow. If there's a guy out there Beane wants to sign, he can make some cap moves and do it, though. As far as Zay Jones, though, Zay Jones had a $10.7 cap hit this season, of which $7.5 M was new money (salary and workout bonus). That slots him in at Mike Williams/Adam Thielen/TiktokBoi range. Williams has been a consistant 70-ish YPG guy his last 3 years. Thielen, fell off a little in 2022 Minny but other than that, very consistant 55-60+ YPG guy since 2016 (3rd year). Jones has hit 50+ ypg once in his career, 2022, behind Christian Kirk. He's gonna want to wait a minute and see if someone else will pay him the way Jax did, or close, and I don't think he's got that ROI for that. As far as the Bills, to that. We're better off hoping for another 40 ypg season from Mack Hollins like he had with an OK QB, Carr, throwing to him in Vegas (but behind Devante Adams). Hollins seems to be a unique (and entertaining) guy with a great work ethic, which I think is more than you can count on Zay Jones to be.

I think we do need other receivers, yes. It's a position at which injuries are common. So far Shakir has been durable, but he's also not yet seen more than 50% of the snaps. Samuel has been durable the last couple years but again, last year ~50% of the snaps. Remember 2022 where the plan going into the season was evidently to platoon Crowder and McKenzie? Then Crowder broke his leg, and it was all up to McKenzie. That meant when Davis got dinged, we had Jake Kumerow, Isaiah Hodgins, and Tanner Gentry seeing playing time, and after we lost Isaiah Hodgins to an injury-crunch at DB waiver move and Kumerow went down, we were hauling Brown and Beas off the sofa (our WR equivalent of bringing in Klein). So yes, I agree with you that last year's bottom-of-roster WR and Cephus are competing for #5 and possibly #6 on the roster, but the quality of those guys can really make or break a season - just like the quality of the LB at the bottom of the depth chart. And I'd really like an upgrade there. I'd like to see Shakir-Coleman-Samuel-better receiver-Hollins-better receiver, albeit it's possible we only keep 5 WR on the roster and more TE depending upon what kind of offense Brady wants to run, in which case yeah, #6 is gonna have to be a guy we can keep on the practice squad. But we still need one more guy, and not persuaded Quintez Cephus is The One rather than a chap competing for #6 with the rest of them. I'm also not persuaded that Beane sees it that way, in which case Shades of 2019